distributed leadership in action: full...

Distributed Leadership in Action:Full report

www.ncsl.org.uk

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National College for School Leadership

Distributed Leadership in Action: a study of current practice in schools

Contents 1

Chapter One: The Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Research questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3The sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Gathering the data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Workshops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7The rationale for the study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Chapter Two: Distributed Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9First thoughts on distributed leadership: a brief history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Distributed leadership: clarifying the conceptual maze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Gronn’s model of ‘distributed leadership’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Distributed leadership and learning organisations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Chapter Three: Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18How school staff see leadership and culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Issues of school culture and belief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22The headteacher’s day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Chapter Four: Distribution Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Six ways to distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Chapter Five: Developing and Sustaining Distributed Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Chapter Six: Dilemmas in Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Consultation, command and consensus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Directing, intervening and standing back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53Trust and accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Factors that promote and inhibit distributed leadership in schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Chapter Seven: Implications for Professional Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Some questions to consider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63


Sponsored by NCSL.University of Cambridge in collaboration with the Eastern Leadership Centre, John MacBeath, George KT Oduro,Joanne Waterhouse, July 2004

Chapter One:The Study

Research questions

Our study, which began in September 2003 and ended in May 2004, was a small-scale research project with the aim of investigating the practical implications of what has come to be known as ‘distributed leadership’. In doing so we hoped to set the scene for future larger-scale research. The project sought to address thefollowing six main questions:

¢ What is understood by the term ‘distributed’ leadership? What meanings are attributed to the termdistributed leadership by headteachers and by other staff?

¢ Who is involved and where does the initiative for distributed leadership lie?

¢ What are the processes by which leadership is distributed?

¢ What issues do headteachers encounter in trying to distribute leadership or to create environments in whichit takes place?

¢ What different forms may such distribution take? (For example, is it conferred, delegated, invited, assumedby election or by subversion?)

¢ How do people in formal leadership positions deal with the multiplicity of leadership roles within a school?

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Distributed Leadership in Action: A study of current practice in schools

Chapter One: The Study

The sample

The project took the form of case studies involving 11 schools (four secondary, two middle and three primary,two junior/infant) within three eastern region local authorities (Essex, Suffolk and Hertfordshire). The schools,which were located in urban and rural settings, were purposively chosen, based on recommendations from theirlocal authorities, as schools that exemplified distributed leadership or were interested in becoming moredistributive in their practice.

All headteachers of the 11 selected schools were involved in the study, in most cases with between one and threeother staff involved in meetings and workshops. Before the study began, three separate meetings were held withheadteachers and other members of staff, where they were briefed about the purpose of the study and thepotential benefits for leadership in their schools. These forums provided opportunities for us to establish rapportwith the headteachers and gave school staff the chance to reflect upon the project prior to giving their consentto participate. Also included in the study were 302 teachers who returned questionnaires which wereadministered to all teachers in the participating schools.1

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1 As a way of ensuring that all the teachers in the participating schools had equal chances of participating in the study, we administered questionnaires to all the 451 teachers in the six schools. 302 responded.

Gathering the data

Data for the study was gathered through three main tools:

¢ shadowing of headteachers

¢ interviews with headteachers and teachers

¢ questionnaires for teachers

Through these three tools a clearer picture of what distributed leadership looks like in the participating schoolswas provided.

The questionnaires

In all, 451 questionnaires consisting of 54 closed-ended items (see Appendix 1) were administered to teachers inthe participating schools through their headteachers. All teachers in the 11 schools responded to the same formof questionnaires The questionnaire had two sections, A (with questions relating to school culture) and B(questions relating to leadership and management). Statements in both of these sections asked foragreement/disagreement on Scales X and Y. Scale X focused on how the teachers saw things in their school atthat time, and Scale Y on what they saw as crucial, very important, important and not important. Scale Y isskewed towards the positive in order to make finer discriminations at the positive end given the generallydesirable nature of the issues in question. Each questionnaire took about 20-30 minutes to complete.

The questionnaire served a number of purposes. Firstly, it helped us to get a clear picture of schools as they wereat the outset of the project, or more accurately, schools as they were seen at the outset. Secondly, it helped theschools themselves to get a picture of their own self-evaluation and improvement planning by providing themwith information on how the schools were seen by staff and what they expected from their schools, in particularwith respect to school culture and leadership.

Shadowing

Shadowing has become an important technique through which researchers can gain at first hand impressionsand information from key people involved in the work of the school. It has been use in major internationalprojects such as the ongoing Carpe Vitam (Leadership for Learning) research and in the Student as ResearchersProject in which shadowing is defined as a researcher following those they are shadowing ‘for a day, or two daysor perhaps even a week to build up information, insight and crucially a sense of understanding of that particularcase’ (Sutherland and Nishimura, 2003 p.33). The method allows the researcher not only to observe what thosethey shadow actually do in the course of a day, but also to get an inside view of the problems and challengesthey encounter. With a degree of trust between shadower and shadowee, it creates an atmosphere for reflectingupon the activities of the person being shadowed and the context in which that activity is carried out.

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A major strength of this technique, based on our own experience and a growing literature, lies in its ability to make the researcher a ‘privileged insider’ by drawing him/her closer to those he/she follows and providing practicalexperience of life in the working environment of the shadowee. In spite of these strengths, we acknowledge thatthe awareness of being shadowed can be stressful to headteachers and others. It can create an artificial setting andthereby affect what the headteachers would normally do during the shadowing period. We endeavoured to reduceits effect by explaining the purpose of the shadowing to heads, encouraging them as far as possible to ignore ourpresence in the school but at the same time to use us as a sounding board and confidante.

We followed each of the headteachers for a day in their schools, focusing on actions and transactions and notingthe frequency of their interactions with other members of the school. We quantified the time they spent withindividuals and groups of people, for example, members of the leadership team, teachers, pupils or visitors. From this data we examined patterns of activity over the day, which were then fed back to heads for verificationand comment and later used as a focus for discussion with other headteachers. After the shadowing, there wereopportunities to explore issues further with the headteachers, helping them to reflect on transactions or incidentsthat emerged from the day.

Interviews

Interviews (Appendix 2) were semi-structured and of two types: those with headteachers, primarily informed by issues emerging from the shadowing and those with teachers, based on issues emerging from thequestionnaires. Interview sessions with each headteacher lasted between 45 and 60 minutes; those with teachers lasted between 40 and 50 minutes. The interviews were used to explore:

¢ how the interviewees saw leadership, and people they saw as leaders in their schools

¢ the meaning that they attached to the notion of distributed leadership

¢ what they considered to be the processes through which leadership was distributed in their schools

¢ whom they considered to be the initiators of distributed leadership

¢ the nature of leadership practised by the headteachers in school

¢ the influence of distributed leadership on learning

¢ factors that promote distributed leadership and those that hinder it

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Workshops

Workshops were a significant aspect of the research in each of the areas. There were used variously fordiscussion, feedback, dialogue and networking.

In Hertfordshire three termly workshops were an integral part of the research design. They were each planned as a forum for shared learning and debate, and provided opportunities both to feed back interim findings andagree the next stage of the research process. The researcher’s role in Hertfordshire was designed to be a combinationof researcher and critical friend, and the workshops were another opportunity for reflection and discussion. Fromthe outset it was agreed that each school would be represented at the workshops and it was emphasised that ateam of leaders could be identified to attend, with or without the headteacher. We considered it important that a core group should be identified in order to ensure consistency but we wanted to build in some flexibility so thatthe practicalities of school life could be accommodated.

The initial workshop in the autumn term discussed principles and terminology, and included some feedbackfrom the baseline questionnaire. The second workshop had more detailed feedback from the shadowing activityand it shared emerging findings from an early analysis of the data. The final workshop included an activity inwhich teachers and headteachers interrogated a sample of the data to test the developing theory. There was alsotime scheduled for each school to tell the story of the development of distributed leadership in their setting overthe year and prior to the start of the project. Participants were encouraged to consider their stories in terms offactors that had aided the distribution of leadership and factors they perceived as barriers.

The first two workshops were twilight sessions but the third workshop took place over an afternoon and included lunch. This was in response to a request from the schools for more time to discuss and learn from eachother and reflected a growing confidence about the principles and practices involved. Each workshop took placein the Professional Development Centre and was attended by the LEA adviser who had supported and promotedthe project.

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The rationale for the study

There is now a substantial body of literature to support the concept of distributed leadership as a strategy forimproving school quality and assisting schools to operate as learning organisations (Bennet et al, 2003; Gronn,2002; Leverett, 2002). Distributing leadership across the whole range of potential contributors to a school’seffectiveness and improvement has become a central tenet within NCSL. This includes not only teachers’involvement in leadership but that of other staff and students too. This is what is suggested by Murphy andForsyth (1999) in their characterisation of leadership as exercised not ‘at the apex of the organisational pyramidbut at the centre of the human relationships’. Nor is leadership simply to be equated with headship, as GeoffSouthworth argues:

“School leadership is often taken to mean headship. Such an outlook limits leadership to one person and implieslone leadership. The long-standing belief in the power of one is being challenged. Today there is much more talkabout shared leadership, leadership teams and distributed leadership than ever before.”

Southworth, 2002

This is a challenging notion for more traditional views and practices of school leadership. Faced with a scepticalaudience it is difficult to point to a convincing body of evidence that demonstrates how leadership is actuallydistributed in a school, nor to point unequivocally to its effects on school learning or improvement. Despite agrowing body of work on teacher leadership (for example Frost and Harris, 2003; Frost and Durrant, 2000;Gronn, 2002) and much leading practice among teachers, it is hard for many to make the mental escape from a concept of leadership as what headteachers and senior managers do.

There exists a range of possible ways in which distribution may occur but there does not exist to date asubstantive body of literature to illustrate how distribution works, what its merits are and how headteachers and teachers perceive it. In the professional development of headteachers, we may be able to refer to someexemplary schools but without grounded theory to show how the process works there is a danger of emptyrhetoric. The vision and the practice do not offer us a coherent picture. This lack of data provides a strong casefor research that explores the issue with fine-grained description and for findings that will be of practical use toleaders and would-be leaders, making the links between the theory and the practice, and giving them greaterconfidence to be more adventurous in their own schools. Hopefully such grounded research will contribute toprofessional development and to NPQH, LPSH and other NCSL programmes in the future. This is a beginning.

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Chapter Two: Distributed Leadership

First thoughts on distributed leadership: a brief history

The idea of distributed leadership became prominent in leadership literature, Gronn suggests (2002:653), aroundthe late 1990s while ‘the first known reference to distributed leadership was in the field of social psychology inthe early 1950s’. The concept, if not the actual term has, however, a longer ancestry. As far back as 1250 BC,Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, proposed a model of distributive leadership as an alternative to Moses’individualistic style, cautioning Moses: ‘The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, boththou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyselfalone’ (Exodus 18: 17-18). Jethro saw the practice of distributing leadership responsibilities as a better plan forMoses in leading God’s people. He advised:

“Thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and placesuch over them to be rulers of thousands, and of hundreds, rulers of fifties and rulers of tens. And let them judgethe people at all seasons: and it shall be that every great matter they shall bring unto thee but every small matterthey shall judge so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.”

Exodus 18: 21 and 22.

Jethro’s model of distributing leadership responsibilities was based on the principle that ‘Great men should notonly study to be useful themselves, but contrive to make others useful’ (BibleClassics.com, 2003). It implies notonly a delegation of authority but the creation of an environment in which people are able to grow intoleadership. While such a view of leadership may have remained implicit over the centuries it appears not to havebeen explicitly theorised until the latter half of the last century, when it became important in social psychologyand organisational theory.

In the USA, the term was given official sanction by the Council of Chief State School Officers, asserting thateducational institutions should have ‘leaders working effectively in “multiple leadership” or “distributedleadership” teams’ (2000:5). In the United Kingdom, the concept had not been given much prominence untilrecently when NCSL resurrected the discourse and set it as an essential principle in its school leadershipdevelopment literature (MacBeath 2003, Bennett et al, 2003). NCSL, through its Research Associate Programme,has created opportunities for school leadership practitioners to explore various aspects of school leadership, withdistributed leadership as a major focus.

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Chapter Two: Distributed Leadership

Distributed leadership: clarifying the conceptual maze

The educational literature, including NCSL-sponsored research reports, offers a number of different terms akin to the notion of distribution. Terms such as ‘shared leadership’, ‘collaborative leadership’, delegated leadership’,‘dispersed leadership’ and ‘democratic leadership’ are used, in some cases interchangeably, while in otherswriters are at pains to make fine distinctions among this ‘alphabet soup’ of descriptors. For example, Kelly(2002), reporting on her small-scale study of primary school management teams in south-west England, suggeststhat delegated and distributed leadership are concerned with transfer and division, while shared leadership onthe other hand suggests collaborative responsibility. Attempts to make these distinctions are helpful since, leftundefined, words tend to blur meanings and allow assumptions to pass untested. Bennett and colleagues makea distinction between ‘doing to’ and ‘doing with’ others:

“Distributed leadership is not something “done” by an individual “to” others, or a set of individual actions throughwhich people contribute to a group or organisation. […]. Distributed leadership is a group activity that worksthrough and within relationships, rather than individual action. It emerges from a variety of sources depending onthe issue and who has the relevant expertise or creativity.”

Bennett et al, 2003:3

Doing things ‘to’ others carries an implicit assumption of power and control whereas ‘doing with’ implies adifferent quality of distribution. It may be helpful, therefore, to make a distinction between the terms‘distributed’ and ‘distributive’ leadership, the former denoting leadership roles as something ‘in the gift of theheadteacher’, which he/she allocates magnanimously while holding on to power. ‘Distributive’ leadership, on theother hand “implies holding, or taking initiative as a right rather than it being bestowed as a gift” (MacBeath,2004: 4). Bennett et al’s statement appears to be closer to the second of these two concepts.

‘Distributive leadership’ is the term used by the University of Chicago’s Centre for School Improvement (CSI) todenote a collaborative enterprise in order to achieve the school’s goals. Hence, one feature of the CSI’s schooldevelopment initiative focuses on supporting principals to establish distributive leadership ‘where professionalswith specific expertise and responsibility collaborate to strengthen teaching and learning across classrooms’ (CSI,2001). The notion of specific expertise does appear to suggest people collaborating across specified organisationalroles and leadership being given or assumed relative to knowledge, competency or predisposition. It is a basicidea which Elmore (2000) regards as essentially uncomplicated.

“The basic idea of distributed leadership is not very complicated. In any organized system, people typicallyspecialize, or develop particular competencies, [which] are related to their predispositions, interests, priorknowledge, skills, and specialized roles […] It is the ‘glue’ of a common task or goal – improvement of instruction –and a common frame of values for how to approach that task – culture – that keeps distributing leadership frombecoming another version of loose coupling.”

Elmore, 2000

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Distributive leadership, according to Elmore, takes place when people who have been appointed officially asleaders (headteachers) become committed to “building learning organizations and providing opportunities for all[…] to give their gifts, to develop their skills and to have access to leadership that is not dependent on one’s“place” in the hierarchy or formal organizational chart” (Leverett, 2002). In this sense, school leadership is aprocess of social distribution, a dispersed practice that is described as stretching across the whole range ofcontributors to a school’s effectiveness and improvement including teachers and students.

A distributed leadership study project carried out by Spillane et al., 2001) further develops this point. Out of84 elementary school teachers involved in the study, 70 (83.3 per cent) attributed improvement in theirinstructional practices to the influence of their principals, 24 (28.6 per cent) ascribed their performance to theinfluence of assistant principals, while 67 (79.8 per cent) were reported to have identified other teachers ashaving shaped their instructional practices. As Hallett (2001:4) puts it, “leadership is not restricted to the schooladministration, as teachers may become active leaders”. In a more simplified way, the practice of distributedleadership, it is argued, is characterised by a three-tier interaction involving leaders, followers and the situationin which leadership is carried out (Spillane et al, 2001).

For Spillane and his colleagues, the appropriate unit of analysis is not leaders or what they do but the activity inwhich they engage. Leadership activity is constructed in the interaction of leaders, followers, and their situationin the execution of particular leadership tasks. As illustrated in Figure 1, in this view, leadership activity involvesthree essential constituting elements – leaders, followers, and situation. It does not reside in any one of theseelements, and each is a prerequisite for leadership activity. Our perspective shifts the unit of analysis from theindividual actor or group of actors to the web of leaders, followers and situations that give activity its form.

This suggests that, depending on the prevailing situation, leadership may be distributed so that, dependent oncontext, a leader may become a follower, as represented in Figure 1 below:

Figure 1: Leadership as a distributed phenomenon

Source: Hallett (n.d.). ‘Micro-politics, symbolic power and leadership,: the case of Chicago Public Elementary Schools,

Northwestern University, Chicago.

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LeadershipPractice

Leaders Follower(s)

Situation

Gronn’s model of distributed leadership

Gronn (2002) suggests that ‘distributed leadership’ may be viewed from two broad perspectives: the numerical(or additive) perspective and holistic perspective.

The numerical or additive perspective

From this perspective, ‘distributed leadership’ is understood as the ‘aggregated leadership behaviour of some,many or all of the members of an organisation or an organisational sub-unit’ (p.655). It is additive because it isnot only the headteacher’s leadership that counts but also the leadership roles performed by deputy heads,substantive teachers, support teachers, members of school councils, boards or governing bodies and students.

Leadership is ‘dispersed rather than concentrated’,focused not only on one organisational role or at only onelevel, nor monopolised by only one individual. This type of leadership is based on the following premises:

¢ It does not necessarily give any particular individual or categories of persons the privilege of providing moreleadership than others.

¢ It does not necessarily make assumptions about which individuals’ behaviour might carry more weight withtheir colleagues.

¢ It is prompted by the awareness that more than one person counts in the differences made by organisationalperformance. Hence, it creates opportunity for all members of an organisation to assume leadershippositions from time to time.

The holistic perspective

The holistic perspective sees leadership as a ‘concertive action’ (p.656). Distributed leadership is seen as an all-inclusive phenomenon that encompasses the practice of delegation, sharing, collaboration, dispersion anddemocratising leadership in schools. Rather than concerned with roles, its focus is on spontaneous andcollaborative forms of leadership engagements that arise in the workplace and that “stretch leadership functionacross the social and situational contexts of the school”. Leadership is evident “when ideas expressed in talk oraction are recognised by others as capable of processing tasks or problems which are important to them”(Robinson, 1999:93). Gronn’s holistic model is based on the following premises:

¢ Intuitive working relations emerge when individuals in an organisation negotiate relationships over time andcome to rely on one another. In the process of negotiating their relationship, distributed leadership manifestsitself in the form of shared roles.

¢ A variety of structural relations and institutionalised structures exist in the workplace that attempts toregularise distributed action. An example is the committee system, which organisations use as a “concertivemechanism for pooling distributed capacity and incorporating into an organisation’s formal governancerelations” (p.658).

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Any meaningful discussion or practice of distributed leadership will benefit from reference to these insights andthe additive, as against the holistic, model offers a useful conceptual and practical distinction.

Table 1 below summarises some meanings that have been assigned to these related terms. These definitions mayhelp to find some distinctive identity for distributed leadership and its relationship to other cognate terms.

Table 1: Distributed leadership terms and related meanings

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Related term

Distributedleadership asdelegation

Distributive or dispersedleadership

Shared leadership

Collaborativeleadership

Meaning

Seen as delegation, the responsibility for distribution lies with the headteacher or seniorleadership. Authority is delegated either through formal post holding or in more ad hoc waysaccording to the judgment of senior leaders. Responsibility is ‘distributed’ usually with anattendant implicit, or explicit, accountability.

Dispersed and distributive leadership may be treated as synonymous with delegation butthere is a nuance of difference in the terminology. ‘Dispersed’ appears to suggest leadershipas an activity that can be located at different points within an organisation and pre-existsdelegation, which is a conscious choice as to the exercise of power. The idea of dispersedleadership is captured by David Green’s term ‘leaderful community’, which involves acommunity “in which people believe they have a contribution to make, can exercise theirinitiative and can, when relevant to the task in hand, have followers” (Green, 2002).

Shared leadership is best understood when leadership is explored as a social process –something that arises out of social relationships, not simply what leaders do (Doyle andSmith, 2001). It does not dwell in an individual’s qualities or competencies but lies ‘betweenpeople, within groups, in collective action, which defies attempts to single out ‘a leader’(MacBeath, 2003). Deiss (1997) argues that the concept places a higher degree of importanceon the roles people assume than on positions they hold. It creates avenues for individuals inan organisation to test their own assumptions and those of others rather than waiting forideas or decisions to be handed down through the hierarchy. It is built around openness,trust, concern, respect and appreciation.

The distinctive feature of collaborative leadership lies in its application beyond the school.Frost and Durrant (2002) view collaboration as a vital tool for building trust between theschool and the outside world. This form of leadership is said to operate on the basis of‘alliance’ or ‘partnering’ or ‘networking’. Networked learning communities, some of which aresponsored by NCSL, are an expression of collaboration across the boundaries of individualinstitutions. Collaborative leadership may also apply to an inter-agency context, expressed inschools’ joint work with community agencies, parents, teacher groups, and other externalstakeholders.

While there is little to separate these various terms, they do share one common feature. All agree that leadershipdoes not simply reside in one person. All imply the capacity of others in an organisation to be leaders or toexercise leadership. The best way of understanding the underlying concept, according to Bennett et al (2003) isto think of it “not simply as another technique or practice of leadership, but, just as importantly, as a way ofthinking about leadership”, carrying the essential notion of relinquishing power and ceding control to others.

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Related term

Democraticleadership

Teacherleadership

Meaning

Leadership as ‘democratic’ is by definition antithetical to hierarchy and delegation.Elsbernd suggests four defining characteristics: (i) a leader's interaction with, andencouragement of others to participate fully in all aspects of leadership tasks, (ii)widespread sharing of information and power, (iii) enhancing self-worth of others and (iv)energising others for tasks For democratic leadership to prevail, three things are essential,argue Doyle and Smith: (a) problems and issues need to become a responsibility of all withproper chances for people to share and participate, (b) an emphasis on learning anddevelopment is necessary so that people can share, understand and contribute to what isgoing on, (c) open, respectful and informed conversation is central. Democratic leadershipcan either take the form of consultative (where a leader makes a group decision afterconsulting members about their willingness) or participative decision-making (where aleader makes the decision in collaboration with the group members – often based onmajority rule) (Vroom and Yetton, 1973).

Democratic leadership implies a role for teachers as leaders. Teacher leadership symbolisesdistribution because it provides teachers the opportunity of exercising leadership beyond thelimits of formal hierarchical leadership models within the school. It involves “not just amatter of delegation, direction or distribution of responsibility, but rather a matter ofteachers’ agency and choice in initiating and sustaining change whatever their status” (Frostand Durrant, 2003: 174). Teacher leadership is understood in terms of the extent to whichteachers collaborate with their colleagues (both those in formal and informal leadershippositions) in carrying out leadership development tasks necessary for promoting learningamong pupils within a school.

Distributed leadership and learning organisations

Distributed leadership is closely allied to the notion of the ‘learning organisation’, an idea with origins in thebusiness, rather than the educational, world. There is, however, a compelling logic for its application in a schoolcontext in close association with concepts of distributed leadership.

One significant strand of argument for schools as learning organisations is that “we are now in the midst of aneconomic and social revolution in which the ‘industrial society’ is metamorphosing into the ‘learning society’(Husen, 1986; Ball, 1993). Change on this scale is constantly challenging traditional ways of doing things andcalls for fundamental new ways of thinking and acting. In coping with change, schools are now required to“adopt change strategies that provide internal stability while moving ahead” (Silins, Zarins and Mulford, 2002),seeing learning as ‘the single most important resource for organisational renewal in the postmodern age’(Hargreaves, 1995). Increasingly, learning is seen as not limited to pupils or even to individuals but as somethingthat is social in nature, created collaboratively through joint action and shared intelligence. The school isexpected to function as “a learning organisation in order to continue to improve performance and build capacityto manage change” (Corcoran and Goertz, 1995).

In a shifting social and economic context fraught with unpredictability, the tasks and challenges of leadershipbecome increasingly complex and beyond the scope of any single individual. The wave of changes resulting fromstructural, financial, curricular and technological reforms, as well as a growing demand for accountability, impactpowerfully on the working lives of not only headteachers but teachers, students and all others who are directlyor indirectly involved in the continuity and improvement of the school. Without the power to learn and changeas an organisation and as a community of learners, schools are doomed to relive the mistakes of the past. Therange of tasks suggested in the following quote illustrates the need for a form of leadership that is driven by astrategic capacity-building impulse.

“Learning organisations are organisations that employ processes of environmental scanning; develop shared goals;establish collaborative teaching-and-learning environments; encourage initiatives and risk taking, regularly reviewall aspects related to and influencing the work of the school; recognise and reinforce good work; and provideopportunities for continuing professional development.”

Silins, Zarlins and Mulford, 2002: 24

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Summary

The key issues in the literature may be summarised as follows:

¢ Distributed leadership provides fertile ground for maintaining long-term commitments to the desired goalsof equity. Achieving equitable outcomes for all learners is beyond the capacity of individual highly talentedleaders and requires the knowledge and expertise of others in the school, working with a shared sense ofpurpose. Formal leaders, no matter how talented, cannot make the equity agenda thrive without leadershipcoming from others in the school. (Elmore, 2000)

¢ An organisation cannot flourish – at least, not for long – on the actions of the top leader alone. Schools anddistricts need many leaders at many levels. (Fullan, 2002)

¢ The days of the principal as the lone instructional leader are over. We no longer believe that oneadministrator can serve as the instructional leader for an entire school without the substantial participationof other educators. (Lambert, 2002)

¢ Leadership that embraces collective effort, promotes a shared sense of purpose and mission, engages manyin collaboration across roles, and develops organisational cultures that set high expectations for adults andchildren, is leadership that results in a more fertile environment for meaningful changes in the teaching andlearning environment. (Leverett, 2002)

While the literature suggests that distributed leadership is an indispensable ally of the learning organisation,how this expresses itself in the day-to-day life of schools is more problematic and challenging. This study sets outto address that question.

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Chapter Three: Findings

How schools staff see leadership and culture

The starting point for the project was a questionnaire distributed to all teachers in the participating schools. Intotal 302 teachers responded. Analysing their patterns of response raised a number of issues that needed to befurther elaborated through feedback and workshop discussion.

The questionnaire had two main purposes: to provide us with insights into how school staff were thinking aboutleadership and school culture, and to act as a prompt for discussion with staff, helping both them and us toclarify thinking about the interface of leadership and school culture.

The questionnaire asked teachers to respond to each of the 54 items twice, once in terms of how they sawcurrent school practice (the X scale) and then in terms of what they saw as relatively high and low priorities (theY scale). These two scales allowed us to draw up two sets of rankings, one in terms of perceptions of currentpractice, the second in terms of perceived importance. A third type of analysis gave us a ‘gap measure’ betweenthese two sets of responses (the real and the ideal), and allowed us to provide a priority order – from the largestto the smallest gap.

In order to generate these three sets of rankings we calculated a mean score for each of the items. So, on a four-point scale a mean of four would represent a perfect score while a mean of one would point to a problem.

There were 24 statements specifically about leadership and management and 30 statements about culture andrelationships. We have provided the full range of data in Appendices 3, 3a, 4 and 4a while here we have simplyselected the highest and lowest ranking items in order to highlight how leadership, culture, and their inter-relationship are perceived by school staff.

The five statements about leadership most highly ranked were:

¢ Senior management promotes commitment among staff to the whole school as well as to the department,key stage or year group or year group.

¢ Staff have commitment to the whole school as well as to their department, key stage or year group.

¢ Staff take responsibility for intervening when they see something which runs against school policy.

¢ There is a shared vision among staff as to where the school is going.

¢ Staff are encouraged to take on leadership roles.

Taken together these suggest a culture of collaboration in these participating schools. Not only are senior leadersseen as encouraging a collaborative ethos but staff are seen as endorsing that commitment, sharing vision andpurpose, willing to take on leadership and to take action to uphold school policy. However, what staff see ascurrent practice and what they aspire to suggests that a genuine sharing of the vision remains a challenge to beaddressed. This may be inferred from the gap measure between the X and Y scales (Table 2).

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Chapter Three: Findings

A similar gap between practice and aspiration is evident in relation to the statement ‘Staff are encouraged to take on leadership roles’. There appears to be a strong consensus that this is desirable (distributing leadership is a ‘goodthing’) but less confidence in its actual practice. By contrast, responses to the item ‘Staff take responsibility forintervening when they see something which runs against school policy’ show no gap between the real and the ideal.

While this data raises more questions than it answers, it begins to be unravelled through interview andworkshop discussion. These discussions reveal some ambiguity among teachers and senior managers aboutleadership roles but also illustrate how far a school has moved on a spectrum from a top-down to a moredistributed leadership culture. Taking responsibility or intervening when you perceive something to run against school policy is also tenuously connected to leadership in the minds of some staff. It is highly dependent on context, the nature of the incident and the authority one accepts, attributes to oneself or feels empowered to exercise.

Taking the initiative to offer support to a newly qualified teacher, implementing peer observation, setting up a staff group, challenging a colleague of higher status on racist language, may derive in part from a sense ofpersonal agency but may also because such activities are authorised or affirmed within the culture of the school. A powerful sense of agency is likely to be a reflection of opportunistic distribution or culturally. The overall data inTable 2 below conceals these differences, which tell a different story when examined at individual school level.

Table 2: Five statements with highest rating among the 24 leadership/management items and gap betweencurrent situation (X) and importance (Y)

Statements Scale X Scale Y The gap

Senior management promotes commitment among staff to the whole 3.40 3.61 -0.21school as well as to the department, key stage and/or year group

Staff have commitment to the whole school as well as to their 3.39 3.71 -0.32department, key stage and/or year group

Staff are encouraged to take on leadership roles 3.30 3.38 -0.08

Staff take responsibility for intervening when they see something 3.19 3.48 -0.49which runs against school policy

There is a shared vision among staff as to where the school is going 3.18 3.65 -0.47

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What we may learn about individual school cultures becomes more multi-layered in relation to the five itemsthat were ranked lowest by school staff. These were:

¢ Parents are encouraged to take on leadership roles.

¢ Staff see the school development plan as their own creation.

¢ There are processes for involving pupils in decision-making.

¢ Pupils are encouraged to exercise leadership.

¢ There is a sense of shared leadership among staff.

The fifth of these statements There is a sense of shared leadership among staff provides a more stringent test onperceptions of practice and reveals a significant gap between the perceived real and ideal. Staff may share thevision and commit themselves to the school and whole-school policy but this does not necessarily imply sharingin leadership nor in shaping of the policy to which they apparently adhere. There is scepticism about widerinvolvement in school development planning, in a sense a reality check on distribution of leadership. Table 3reveals consistently large gaps between practice and aspiration, most pronounced when it comes to parents andpupils. Parents are encouraged to take on leadership roles receives the least wholehearted support of any itemboth on scale X and scale Y. While teachers seem slightly happier to attribute leadership roles to pupils, it isapparently not reflected in practice, and the gap between scales X and Y is significant. For schools this datapresent a clear set of challenges to consider if leadership is to be truly more widely distributed.

Table 3: Five statements with lowest rating among the 16 leadership/management items and gap betweencurrent situation (X) and importance (Y)


Parents are encouraged to take on leadership roles 2.54 2.86 -0.32

Staff see the school development plan as their own creation 2.72 3.26 -0.54

There are processes for involving pupils in decision-making 2.76 3.16 -0.40

Pupils are encouraged to exercise leadership 2.83 3.19 -0.36

There is a sense of shared leadership among staff 2.85 3.35 -0.54

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Issues of school culture and belief

As a complement to leadership issues, we also posed questions about school culture, collegial relationships andvalues. The five items receiving the highest assent as to current practice all reflect a collegial supportive culturein which high expectations of pupils are centre stage:

¢ Staff believe that all pupils are capable of learning.

¢ Staff offer one another reassurance and support.

¢ Staff, by their behaviour, model for pupils the enjoyment in learning.

¢ If staff have a problem with their teaching they usually turn to colleagues for help.

¢ Staff reflect on their practice as a way of identifying professional learning needs.

High levels of agreement to these five statements appear to suggest a learning-centred culture, one of mutualsupport and reflective practice. As Table 4 shows, on this set of items the highest mean score was in response tothe statement ‘All pupils are capable of learning’. This scored highly for both scales X and Y with mean scoresclose the perfect 4 (3.77 and 3.73 respectively). Responses to two items suggest a high level of collegial support -‘Staff offer one another reassurance and support’ and ‘If staff have a problem with their teaching they usuallyturn to colleagues for help’ - with virtually no gap between the two scales. Only on one item ‘Staff, by theirbehaviour, model for pupils the enjoyment in learning’ is there a gap that might be considered significant.

Table 4: Five highest ranking scores on scale X (satisfaction) and scale Y (importance) by mean scores and gapsbetween the two mean scores


Staff believe that all pupils are capable of learning. 3.77 3.73 +0.04

Staff offer one another reassurance and support 3.69 3.66 +0.03

Staff, by their behaviour, model for pupils the enjoyment in learning 3.54 3.73 -0.19

If staff have a problem with their teaching they usually turn to 3.47 3.51 -0.04colleagues for help.

Staff reflect on their practice as a way of identifying professional 3.44 3.35 +0.09learning needs.

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The extent to which staff themselves model learning is the only area in which practice appears to fall somewhatshort of the ideal. Without further exploration and some normative point of reference, these data tell only partof the story and it is in the probing of these rather optimistic responses that underlying assumptions arerevealed. For example, the story becomes more complex when we probe the shared belief that ‘all children canlearn’. Beneath the easy assent to this proposition are issues of what kind of learning is valued and what kinds of learners are valued. The consensus around the proposition conceals a wide variation in how learning isconceptualised, what knowledge is of most worth and the process through which it is acquired. Implicit theoriesof ‘ability’ and ‘potential’ become more transparent and a culture of learning emerges as a more contested idea.This has immediate relevance for the modelling of staff learning as it is not immediately apparent to teacherswhat the nature of their learning is nor how is it modelled.

Although teachers apparently offer one another support, what constitutes support has to be handled with care asit may descend into collusion rather than a more critical friendship. This, and other issues, become more sharplydefined when we examine the lowest ranked items. As Table 4 illustrates, staff appear much more ambivalentabout challenge from their colleagues nor do they appear to see it as a high priority. Support becomes lessrigorous in its connotation. Their collegiality does not appear to stretch open handedly to support staff andparents. Research and evaluation are not accorded high priority nor do they appear to typify practice.

Table 5. Five lowest ranking scores on scale X (satisfaction) and scale Y (importance) by mean scores and gapsbetween the two mean scores


Staff engage in team teaching as a way of improving practice. 2.54 2.79 -0.25

Staff welcome opportunities to learn from parents 2.64 2.75 -0.11

Staff challenge one another and are not afraid of disagreement. 2.75 2.90 -0.15

Support staff play an important role in school planning. 2.78 3.16 -0.38

Staff carry out joint research and evaluation with one or more 2.80 2.97 -0.17colleagues as a way of improving their practice.

On three items in Table 4, the gap measure is relatively small, suggesting that research and evaluation, andlearning from conflict or from parents is neither typical of practice nor a high priority. By contrast, in relation totheir relationship with senior leadership the gap (as shown in Table 2) is much more marked. This is consistentwith findings discussed earlier – sharing of leadership is more an aspiration than a reality.

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From these selected items, tensions and paradoxes become clearly apparent. Perhaps consistency ought not tobe expected given the nature of questionnaires as an instrument and, more significantly, given the ambiguitiesin the concepts and values being addressed. This is what makes so vital the opportunities to interview, toshadow, and to engage in workshop activities where participants from the schools engage in critical reflectionand dialogue. It is through these other channels that we were able to probe with more detailed understandingwhat people understood by the term ‘distributed leadership’ and how the process of distribution worked inpractice. The implications for a broader, more critical process self-evaluation become apparent.

What emerges most clearly from the exploration of questionnaire responses, and from other qualitative data(interviews, shadowing, workshop activities) is that no schools or leaders fit neatly into any one of our six modelsof distribution. Headteachers draw on a repertoire of response modes, or ‘styles’, depending on the situation inwhich the need for leadership is called upon.

“Sometimes we delegate leadership roles. Sometimes people find themselves in situations where they assumeleadership themselves. It also comes from the school’s culture, where people can assume leadership roles.”

Headteacher, secondary school

Embedded within this statement are different modes of distribution, as delegation and as opportunistic orsomething ingrained within the culture of the school. This further points to leadership styles as a situationalprocess, dependent on a range of contextual factors such as:

¢ factors personal to the headteacher himself/herself, for example, character, experience, confidence, length ofexperience in the school and experience of other schools, influence of other leaders and models emulated

¢ historical and cultural factors, previous incumbents of headship, legacies, organisational memories,recruitment and retention

¢ external pressures, the range and strength of these locally, regionally and nationally; national policies,national agencies (eg DfES, Ofsted, QCA) and how one is placed to respond to them

As these factors bear upon a school, at any given time the process of distribution finds differing expression. It may be assumed that the most expert of heads have a capacity for reading situations and audiences and canchoose their responses accordingly. However, in reality the breadth and flexibility of a headteacher’s repertoire is necessarily constrained by a range of factors, by unpredictable events within and outside the school and themanagement of complexity and paradox.

At the outset of the project, participants frequently raised questions about the meaning of terms. They wantedto know what academics understood by ‘leadership’ and ‘distribution’. Equally, schools expressed an awarenessthat amongst themselves, between and within the organisations, there was often assumed agreement that didnot represent the complexities and differences represented by the understanding and perceptions of individuals.

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After the questionnaire had been carried out in his school and items critically reviewed, one secondaryheadteacher remarked that:

“We assume that we all know what it (leadership) means but we don’t. I heard staff talking about this and therewere things being said that I hadn’t expected. One person said it was all about me. But we had a meeting about thislast term and I thought we’d discussed it. When I think about it now we didn’t discuss what we each understood byleadership.”

A deputy headteacher in a primary school pointed out that:

“It (leadership) means different things to different people according to their role. And experience and training. Andwhether they want to take on any responsibility. Maybe it even means different things according to what the headand I want to do.”

These comments were echoed across the schools and represent an increasing awareness of terms and meaningsthat were a significant factor in both the development of leadership practice and in its distribution It is not thatheadteachers and school staff necessarily learnt new skills or changed their practice. Rather they saw it isimportant, or as a first stage, to overtly consider the issues and meanings and articulate them, to oneself and toothers. In promoting understanding and reflection it made action possible and potentially more effective.

Towards the end of the project in many, if not all of the schools, staff were becoming more confident to talkabout leadership in action in their settings. They were more assured in recognising and assigning behaviours andskills to varying forms of leadership. Some were expressing clear ideas about how they intended to promotefurther and develop a more agreeable climate for innovation and creativity.

One headteacher was concerned that staff who had been given encouragement to lead were not fulfilling theirpotential or making the most of the opportunity. In discussion it became apparent that he was himself aninstinctive, natural leader. He admitted that he had never thought through in detail the skills and behaviours he expected from others. Nor had he consciously given thought to the various ways in which leadership wasdistributed. With his senior leadership team they debated the issues surrounding the development of leaders intheir setting. He reported after some time that he was better placed now to facilitate and lead the learning forleadership. His judgement was that the potential for a more thoughtful distribution around his school was nowbeing realised. Complementing this, expectations of leadership held by the teachers who participated in ourstudy raise questions about what headteachers really do at school. Knowing exactly how headteachers use theirtime during a school day, in our view, has direct bearing on the extent to which leadership is distributed and thedistribution strategies heads adopt. Findings from our shadowing of headteachers show that their work ischaracterised by ‘a rapid pace of events, with their time typically being fragmented into many varied and short-term activities’ (Davies, 1987). The complexity of the interactions in which headteachers engage and theoverwhelming tasks they perform during a day in the school, as we illustrate below, make the issue ofdistribution crucial.

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The headteacher’s day

How headteachers spend their day can reveal much about distribution and what it means in practice. While a day of shadowing offers no more than a glimpse into the culture, it offers an agenda for follow-up discussion and provides another piece in the assembly of the jigsaw. In shadowing, the focus is on what the head is doingbut at the same time can reveal much about relationships, about language and about the culture of the school.

One aspect of shadowing is to note different ‘role partners’, who are the people with whom the head spends hisor her time. A second focus is on the nature of the tasks he or she undertakes in the course of the day. These twoaspects of the headteacher’s work may be broadly quantified as shown in Figures 2 and 3.

Exploring interactions

The interactions illustrated in Figure 2 are a composite based on all 11 heads. As such it is deceptive as individualprofiles are distinctively different in the three contexts of primary, middle and secondary schools (see Figures 2.1, 2.2and 2.3). However, the aggregated picture is nonetheless interesting, for example in the category ‘visitors’ it shows thatwhile investing substantial time inward with staff, external relationships are also a significant aspect of the head’s role.

Figure 2: Headteachers’ interactions % of a day’s time spent with different people

Of itself, this figure tell us little about the process of distribution. Only when we opened this up for discussionwith headteachers, and when taken together with other data, could we begin to fill out our understanding ofwhat distributed leadership is and how it works. Heads were quick to point out that the picture typified in one day would not necessarily hold true for overall weekly interaction with different people in the school. Forexample, interactions with pupils might be relatively low on one day; on other occasions they might be quiteheavily involved in teaching, covering for absent colleagues. They welcomed monitored teaching as it gave themthe opportunity to spend more time with pupils. Nonetheless they did tend to agree that interactions in whichthey engaged themselves revealed differences from phase to phase. These are shown in Table 6.

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teachers 33.3%

non-academic staff 20%

departmental head 6.7%pupil/student 11.1%

visitors 15.6%

senior management team 13.3%

Table 6: Percentage of time spent with different people by headteachers at different school levels

Junior/infant heads Primary/middle heads Secondary heads

Heads’ interaction with: % of time spent % of time spent % of time spent

Pupils/students 17.6 18.9 15.2

Visitors 11.8 21.6 15.2

Teachers 35.3 27.0 27.3

Non-academic staff 20.6 16.2 18.2

Departmental head 5.9 5.4 9.1

Senior management team 8.8 10.8 15.2

In view of the relatively small sample, these figures need to be treated with caution and extrapolating trends is problematic, although differences do raise a number of issues about leadership relationships by phase. Forexample, headteachers at junior/infant and primary/middle levels spent 17.6 per cent and 18.9 per cent of theirschool time with pupils respectively, while the figure for secondary heads was 15.2 per cent. Reflecting on thesedifferences, heads attributed this mainly to the organisational differences between types of school. Infant/primaryheads (at least in our sample) spent more time with learning assistants and support staff, and less time directly withpupils. Primary heads spent more time with pupils than their secondary colleagues. One secondary headteacherexplained this as evidence of a leadership style that creates avenues for active involvement of teachers inleadership. Once leadership is effectively dispersed, teachers are able to attend to the needs of pupils therebyreducing the frequency and the amount of time headteachers would have to spend with pupils:

“My leadership style of granting departmental heads and teachers free hand to carry out shared responsibilities enablesthem to resolve most issues affecting students that would have created opportunities for me to interact with them.”

Secondary headteacher

A common feature across all schools is a headteacher’s day characterised by movement from one place toanother. Few heads spent time in their office. This was most characteristic of primary heads. As one head put it:

“I hardly stay in my office when school is in session because I’m very concerned about the welfare of the children. My primary aim is to ensure that every child benefits from teaching and learning […] Even when I’m in the office, I don’t shut my door.” [The open door was often referred to symbolically but in practical terms did make headsmore visible and accessible and increased the likelihood of mutual interaction.]

A middle headteacher

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What emerged from these discussions was the complexity and volatile nature of interactions with differentpeople. Much of it had an ad hoc quality, responding to demand and crisis. As an example, one primaryheadteacher was seen chatting with one visitor (A). In the process, another visitor (B) walked towards where hewas and tried to attract his attention. On seeing visitor B he interrupted his conversation with visitor A, attendedbriefly to visitor B and then resumed conversation with the first visitor.

Figure 2.1: Junior/infant heads interactions % of time spent with different people

Figure 2.2: Primary/middle heads’ interactions % of time spent with different people

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teacher 35.3%

non-academic staff 20.6%

departmental head 5.9%

pupil/student 17.6%

visitors 11.8%


teacher 27.%


departmental head 5.4%

pupil/student 18.9%

visitors 21.6%


Figure 2.3: Secondary heads interactions % of time spent with different people

Exploring tasks

Further light is shed on these issues when we examine the nature of the tasks heads perform. As Figure 3 shows,these are varied and complex. Figure 3 presents some major activities we identified during the shadowing of theheadteachers, including receiving visitors, attending meetings, handling discipline matters, monitoring teachingand learning, taking care of cleanliness issues, managing paperwork and many other incidental activities difficultto quantify because they happen at the same time, most characteristic of the head’s role.

Figure 3: Headteachers’ tasks % of a day’s time spent various tasks

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teacher 27.3%


departmental head 9.1%pupil/student 15.2%

visitors 15.2%


monitoring learning 15.6%

paperwork 8.9%

consultation 15.6%

caretaking 7.4%show visitors around 7.4%

on the phone 8.1%

assist children to learn 13.3%

handling discipline 7.4%

meeting 16.3%

The similarities among different phases of schools are in many respects more striking than the differences. For all heads, paperwork is a common factor, together with meetings, phone calls, consultation, visitors and basic‘caretaking’ tasks, leaving less time for monitoring or supporting pupil learning. It is in the balance of theseactivities that questions of distribution arise. How driven are heads by the day-to-day demands of the school,managing across a range of imperatives? How strategic are they in planning and foreseeing eventualities? To whatextent do they delegate or fail to delegate? To what extent does the culture allow opportunistic leadership by staffand pupils, relieving the headteacher of duties and reactivity? What function in a culture of distribution does theopen door serve? Comparisons by phase reveal consistent factors but some clear differences too.

Table 7: Percentage of time spent on tasks by headteachers at different school levels

Junior/infant heads Primary/middle heads Secondary heads

Heads’ tasks % of time spent % of time spent % of time spent

Monitoring teaching 12.2 16.2 21.2

Consultation 22.0 16.2 12.1

Paperwork 12.2 8.1 15.2

Caretaking 7.3 8.1 6.1

Show visitors round 4.9 5.4 9.1

On the phone 9.8 10.8 3.0

Supporting individual/group learning 9.8 10.8 12.1

Handling discipline 4.9 5.4 6.1

Meeting 17.1 18.9 15.2

Showing visitors round, engaging in basic ‘caretaking’, handling disciplinary incidents and attending meetingsappear to be fairly similar in their consumption of headteacher time. One striking difference between the basicprimary and secondary schools is the time spent on telephone conversations. Heads of secondary schoolsappeared not to use the phone as much as those in the primary school. This is in part explained by specific roleswithin a secondary leadership team and by the more direct access to the head in primary schools and a lesserinhibition on the part of parents to make contact with the head. It is also a function of formal distribution inlarger and more complex secondary structures and conventions.

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When it comes to learning, direct involvement with pupils and ‘mediated’ engagement with pupil learningsimilarities and differences again emerge. Secondary headteachers spent more time on monitoring teaching(21.2 per cent) as against 12.2 per cent for primary/middle headteachers and 16.2 per cent for junior/infantheads. This is indicative of a more formal approach to performance management. Monitoring appears to be lessad hoc and opportunistic in primary and middle schools in this study. The amount of time given by secondaryheadteachers to support pupils’ learning is perhaps surprising, but in these schools headteachers are often foundsupervising or giving direct help to children who had been sent to their office or supervising classes for absentteachers, or interacting with groups of pupils during workshops activities. This one-day sample may not, ofcourse, reflect the realities of the normal support that secondary headteachers give to individual pupils.

Figure 3.1: Junior/infant heads % of time spent on different tasks

Figure 3.2: Primary/middle heads % of time spent on different tasks

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monitoring teaching 12.2%

paperwork 12.2%

consultation 22.%


on the phone 9.8%

support learning 9.8%


meeting 17.1%


paperwork 8.1%

consultation 16.2%


on the phone 10.8%



meeting 18.9%

Figure 3.3: Secondary heads % of time spent on different tasks

These pie charts were fed back to heads - in some cases individually and in some cases in groups – to assess howtypical the patterns were and to raise issues as to the distribution of task and time in relation to the variousstakeholders encountered in the course of a day or week. It helped headteachers to reflect critically on theirpriorities and to consider how, in a more distributed scenario, they might reframe the nature of their activityprofile. It set the stage for the development of six differing models of how leadership is distributed, ordistributes itself.

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paperwork 15.2%

consultation 12.1%

caretaking 6.1%

show visitors around 9.1%

on the phone 3.%



meeting 15.2%

Chapter Four: Distribution Process

Introduction

Throughout the course of this research project we became increasingly aware of the complexities of a model of leadership that necessarily involved more than one individual. The data we collected through questionnaires,shadowing and interviews helped to identify the dynamics of leadership and the cultures in which they were set.We were offered a glimpse of how individuals and groups were directed, motivated or inspired to lead.

During interviews, staff members were asked about their professional histories and how their leadershipknowledge and skills had developed. The context of the individual school was considered a significant aspect for many in shaping their views of leadership and their own role in it. Systems for communication andarrangements for collaboration assumed considerable importance. Differing leadership styles and approaches of the headteachers impacted on their respective organisations in different ways and were sensitive to changesboth in the internal and external context.

We came to an understanding of distributed leadership in terms of a developmental process. We heard accountsof personal, professional and organisational development before the onset of this particular project andthroughout the duration of our work with the schools. Having time for reflection and discussion during theworkshops allowed us to come to a shared understanding of how distribution worked as an evolving process.Many staff reported on ways in which they believed that leadership had become more distributed in theirschools as their own awareness had increased throughout the time of the study. Distributed leadership waspotentially a condition for change and an outcome of change. Increasingly it seemed that a key way tounderstand distributed leadership was in terms of processes.

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Chapter Four: Distribution Process

Six ways to distribution

The following six categories, which were in large part a product of these discussions, represent different ways ofthinking about leadership and differing processes of distribution. Any one of these may in some cases describe aprevalent form of thinking and practice in a given school. More typically though, schools evolve through differentstages or exemplify different approaches at different times and in response to external events. Nor are thesecategories discrete or watertight, although we have presented them as separate. We have described these processesas formal distribution, pragmatic distribution, strategic distribution, incremental distribution, opportunisticdistribution and cultural distribution. In Figure 6 we have portrayed these as a taxonomy or continuum to suggestthe flow among them and their situational character. While these are neither fixed nor mutually exclusive andwhile each may be appropriate at a given time and in a given context, the most successful leadership would, webelieve, convey an understanding of all of these different expressions of ‘distribution’ and be able to operate ineach way as appropriate to the task in hand.

Figure 6: A taxonomy of distribution

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Strategic distribution:

based on plannedappointment of individuals

to contribute positively to the development

development of leadershipthroughout the school

Incremental distribution:

devolving greater responsibilityas people demonstrate their

capacity to lead

Opportunistic distribution:

capable teachers willinglyextending their roles toschool-wide leadership

because they arepredisposed to taking

initiative to lead

Cultural distribution:

practising leadership as areflection of school’s culture,

ethos and traditions

Formal distribution:

through designated roles/job description

Pragmatic distribution:

through necessity/ often adhoc delegation of workload

Distributed Leadership

Formal distribution

Schools in England are by history and nature hierarchical. They have a single principal, in recent years called a‘headteacher’. When appointed to a school he or she comes increasingly with formal qualifications for headship, with a mandate from governors and with a set of expectations from staff and parents as well as from localauthorities, government bodies and from Ofsted. The school is structured in terms of designated leadership andmanagement roles, through which the headteacher delegates responsibility. In many primary schools there are few,if any, teachers without some management or leadership role. Leadership is seen as giving a sense of ownership butat the same is constrained within the remit and boundaries of the respective designated roles of staff members.

“I think it’s still important to have structure in leadership but distributed enough so that everybody feels thatthey’ve got ownership of something and that they feel empowered to be able to do something that’s their own. I keep coming back to subject leadership. I can’t talk about it in any other context really.”

SENCO, primary school

The sense of ‘ownership’ and ‘empowerment’ – two key words in the lexicon of distribution – in this modelcome from having a designated role within the formal structure and primarily in relation to subjects.

A newly appointed headteacher may initially make little change in formal responsibilities and most heads treadwarily in their first months, assessing the quality of people in leadership positions but normally feeling obligedto accept the status quo and make explicit expectations of staff in their given roles.

“When people come into the school, they want to see the headteacher. If it’s the press, they’ll want to see theheadteacher. That’s fine, I’m glad to be the head figure. But internally, within the school, I’ve got a hierarchy ofstaff – deputy heads, assistant heads, Year 4 leaders and a significant number of subject coordinators and I expectthose people to lead.”

Headteacher, middle school

Responsibility as structurally delegated carries with it an attendant expectation of delivery. It may beaccompanied by recognition that others have expertise that you do not have and that when responsibility is‘distributed’ in this way the headteacher’s role is to ‘support and provide’.

“If I give somebody responsibility, I expect them to get on with the job. Ours is a very low attaining school whenbased on SATS results. I’ve been encouraging subject co-ordinators to tell me what needs to be done. I don’t knowwhat to do in English to raise standards. There are some generic things I can do but in terms of how to teachEnglish better, it’s the English specialist’s job so I distribute responsibility. If they tell me what they need then my jobis to provide.”


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This formal process of distribution has the advantage of lending security, not only to staff who occupy thoseformal roles but also to other staff who know where they stand. Parents know who it is they should speak to onany given issue, and efficient management seems to be the key to an experience that meets the expectations ofall groups of stakeholders. Such formal distribution may be a necessary precondition for any more radicallydevelopmental journey on which a school might embark.

Pragmatic distribution

Pragmatic distribution is characterised by its ad hoc quality. It is often a reaction to external events. In thesecircumstances, headteachers may ask people to take on responsibility to ease the log-jam and to spread theworkload. Decisions as to who leads, when and where, are made in response to demands from government orthe local authority, or to neighbourhood events or parental pressures. Distribution plays an increasingly largepart as pressures on schools mount and initiatives multiply. It is captured well in Jethro’s advice to Moses (Exodus18: 17-22) referred to earlier. Jethro’s advice about small and great matters determines largely what aspects ofthe burden may be shared and who the ‘the right people’ are to share that burden.

“I think only one person can take so much. Only one person can do so much. So therefore, distributing it to the rightpeople helps everybody – helps the children, helps the teachers, helps everyone. It helps everybody.”

Nursery nurse, primary school

In an environment of increasing demands, decisions about the ‘the right people’ is a pragmatic one, informed bya knowledge of staff capable of sharing the burden and judging how far individual capacity can be furthersqueezed. In a pressured, high-stakes environment such decisions tend to be marked by playing it safe, avoidingrisk and not courting failure by testing untried staff. Judgements are made then on those who can be entrustedwith a leadership role, those who can be talked into some form of co-operation and avoidance of those whosimply ‘divert your energy’:

“You’ve got to be clear about those you can trust to do a good job. If all of them, that’s great, but that’s notpossible. Bring the positive ones up with you and tap their talents, talk to the negative ones if possible. If they don’tchange, ignore them because they can divert your energy.”

Headteacher, primary school

This view is reminiscent of two leadership aphorisms – ‘know your people’ and ‘don’t water the rocks’. Bothimply a capacity to discern latent energy and talent and engage in an implicit, or sometimes explicit, cost-benefitanalysis of where growth is most fruitfully nurtured and where it is unlikely to bear fruit.

It is frequently argued that many staff do not wish to be given leadership roles or to have to take onresponsibility beyond their own class teaching. This is often because teachers see their job in terms of theirrelationship with children rather than with other adults or colleagues. But it is also explained in terms ofpressure: ‘When there’s so much pressure on teachers in the school they’ll definitely avoid taking leadershipresponsibilities,’ one junior school headteacher remarked.

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This pressure, as some headteachers argued in the course of a workshop, goes some way to explaining whyteachers in the participating schools did not place any high value on their engagement in team teaching andcarrying out joint evaluation with other colleagues as a way of improving their professional practice.

In his book The Responsibility Virus, Roger Martin (2002) describes a collusive process in which leaders andfollowers assume fixed and complementary roles. In a sense this may be seen as holding on to the right to betold but also to complain. When there is a wider sense of shared leadership, it may actually alleviate pressure. Itmay hold the clue to the difference between leadership conferred within a hierarchical structure and leadershiparising from need and opportunity.

‘Instinctive’,’ intuitive’ and ‘internalised’ are three words used by headteachers to describe a process that theyconceived of in a way quite distinctive from formal delegation of responsibility. The metaphor here in thefollowing statement from a secondary head is conducting an orchestra. It suggests a harmonic quality in howdifferent players combine their talents.

“Here we don’t work to a formula ... I don’t work with that idea in mind. I do think that it is so instinctive and itsinternalised. It’s like conducting an orchestra. I don’t go around thinking I need to distribute this or that. I don’t dothat. It happens instinctively because I trust the people I work with and have confidence in them; they’ve gotintegrity, they’re honest.”


Strategic distribution

If formal leadership adheres to structure and protocol and pragmatic leadership is ad hoc, the distinguishingfeature of strategic distribution is its goal orientation. It is not about pragmatic problem solving but about focuson a longer-term goal of school improvement.

It is expressed most saliently in a carefully considered approach to new appointments. These may be seen less interms of individual competencies and more in terms of people as team players, perhaps with potential to fulfilcertain roles that are still only a gleam in the eye of the head or senior leadership team. Thinking in the longerterm, one head challenges the notion that ‘roles within a school can be neatly packaged and farmed out toparticular people’ because this may harm sustainability.

“But one of my biggest worries, and I don’t think it will ever go away, is the thought that if you give a particularspecialism to any one individual, that the institution is weakened – not necessarily because of the way thatindividual is fulfilling that role but the consequences of that individual, for whatever reasons, not being there nextyear or the year after to do that.”


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Distribution assumes strategic importance because when expertise becomes concentrated rather thandistributed, it weakens the school.

“The role of examinations officer, for example, network manager – you can see that you need those positions to befilled but you don’t want the expertise to be concentrated on just one person because we would be weaker as aninstitution once those people leave.”


In their book The Wisdom of Teams, Katzenbach and Smith argue that teams do not solve every problem but inmost circumstances outperform groups and individuals. They illustrate how individual differences can becomecollective strengths. The relatively low priority given to challenge and conflict in teachers’ responses to thequestionnaire point to a potential weakening of collective strength within a staff.

Incremental distribution

Formal, pragmatic and strategic forms of leadership tend to imply a process of delegation from the top down. As headteachers become more comfortable with their own authority and feel more able to acknowledge theauthority of others, they are able to extend the compass of leadership and to ‘let go’ more.

“I think initially from top-down through delegation and as it progresses it becomes both bottom-up and top-down.People who show willingness to take some levels of initiative from any direction are really encouraged. And I love to seeit really happen and that’s when I become happy. I believe everyone has a role to play in the school.”

Headteacher, junior school

Incremental distribution has a pragmatic ad hoc quality but is also strategic. Its distinctive purpose is sponsoredgrowth. Its orientation is towards professional development; as people prove their ability to exercise leadershipthey are given more.

“[…] staff who have only been in the school for a short time could also be leaders in that they show by their personality,by their vision, by their jobs, commitment, expectations and values that they have got the capacity to lead ... In a sense,anyone can be a leader. Leadership isn’t hierarchical. It’s a process that a lot of staff can demonstrate.”


This notion of capacity is echoed in the view that capacity is inherent in everyone, but the crucial ingredient isconfidence. A middle school headteacher develops this theme:

“When people come out with new ideas, I ask them if they’re prepared to carry out the idea. […] I try to make peoplefeel confident about what they can do because most people have the ability to lead. What they need is confidence.”


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People become confident when they are made to feel confident. Interpersonal relations therefore acquire aparticular significance because, as one secondary head put it, ‘distribution can be seen in terms of how we relateto one another ... it’s about our attitudes which are more important’. Hargreaves (1975) draws attention to theinfluence of relationships in promoting classroom leadership: ‘the creation of the appropriate classroomatmosphere, namely one that is non-threatening and accepting, springs from the kind of relationship teachersestablish with pupils’ (p.170).

Incremental distribution is not simply instrumental, serving the purpose of school improvement or raisingstandards. The headteacher’s emphasis in the above quote is on attitudes rather than roles. It implies a people,rather than a job, orientation, ‘a bringing on of experience’, which extends limits and is professionally renewing.

“I don’t really think there are too many limits because at worst, what you’re doing by opening up to as many peopleas possible the different roles, is you’re bringing on experience. You’re encouraging contributions and I think you’rebenefiting. If people feel empowered if they are contributing, if opportunities for progression, for promotion don’texist here that means they will look for it elsewhere because one would hope that there would be a level ofambition that would drive people as well and their promotion reflects well on the establishment but it also ensuresa consistent supply, if you like, of fresh blood and new ideas and I think it’s that that provides the life blood of aninstitution, especially a school.”

Assistant headteacher, secondary school

Where there is mutual confidence, and a flow of ideas, leadership becomes fluid and its benefits extend to theyoungest child:

“I think everyone in this school should have the opportunity to do so; [exercise leadership] from the youngest childthroughout and not just a selected few.”


Problems arise where there is lack of confidence. This accounts for the negative values that the teachers in ourstudy attached to distributed leadership practices such as involving pupils in decision-making, encouragingpupils to exercise leadership, engaging in team teaching as a way of improving practice, and carrying out jointresearch and evaluation with colleagues. Welcoming opportunities to learn from parents and challenging oneanother on professional issues will also be embraced by teachers if appropriate structures are put in place thatlead to the development of confidence in people through appropriate interpersonal relationships. Central tothese relationships are trust and belief.

The school is the context in which leadership can be learned, practised and tested because for pupils it will be ata premium in later life.

“[…] the children will need these leadership skills in their development, future workings etc. it helps them to listen,value what other people say and be willing to come out with their ideas and try them out and be able and willingto persuade others”


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Opportunistic distribution

As we move from top down to bottom up, the emphasis in leadership shifts from what the head does to whatothers in the school do. In this category, leadership does not appear to be distributed at all. It is dispersed. It istaken rather than given, assumed rather than conferred. It is opportunistic rather than planned and suggests asituation in which there is such strength of initiative within the school that capable, caring teachers willinglyextend their roles to school-wide leadership. There is natural predisposition to take a lead, to organise, to seewhat needs doing and make sure it gets done.

“…‘it might not be necessarily my initiative. It might be somebody – anyone with a suggestion about something tobe tried out. My job will be to support.”


It involves a symbiotic relation in which ambitious and energetic members of staff are keen to take on leadershiproles and are encouraged to do so by astute headteachers who may have recruited them with that in mind.

“Until this research project, I wouldn’t have given it any attention but I think that’s what we need in our schools. It’sdistributed at every level and it’s not delegated leadership. Equally, there’ll have to be opportunities for anybody whohas ideas that fit in with the purpose of where we’re going. We’ve got leaders at every level whether in subject areas,whether members of our teaching assistant teams or the pupils.”


This can only happen in an environment in which it is ‘safe to venture’:

“People must have high self-esteem because people need the confidence to engage in distributed leadership. I feel theremust be a safe environment where people feel secured enough to venture, where they know they’ll be encouraged.”


A clarity of purpose or ‘pulling in the same direction’ was seen as a precondition for leadership as dispersed andopportunistic. Without this common direction, members of staff might exert strong leadership roles at cross-purposes to the school’s mission or core values. This raises complex questions as to ‘whose values?’ and ‘whosemission or vision?’ In an opportunistic climate there is always scope for subversion and that is both a risk andstrength. When values, priorities and direction are open to challenge and change they test a critical aspect of aschool’s formal leadership – how it responds to divergent views, its ability to manage conflict.

Clearly in such a regime, distribution doesn’t just happen. There are structures and expectations that create andinfuse a certain kind of climate. From a teacher’s perspective, this climate is often invisible. It ‘just is’ or is simply‘the way we do things round here’.

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From a headteacher’s point of view, however, the creation of that climate is likely to have been carefullywrought, underpinned by a value system in which leadership potential is seen to lie within everyone:

“In a sense, anyone can be a leader. Leadership isn’t hierarchical. It’s a process that a lot of staff can demonstrate.”Headteacher, secondary school

Another headteacher adds to this:

“A lot of people exert leadership in the school having confidence to do that not because someone has told them todo that. […] I think how I operate here is a intuitive way. I want people to be involved, I try and persuade themwhen there’s a problem.”


This headteacher describes himself as an intuitive leader and says, ‘I’m very keen on working together andpeople having strength together. When we decide on something we’re all behind this. ‘Opportunity may also be seen as extending to ‘anyone’ who grasps the opportunity to take a lead, including pupils.

“It’s important that pupils can have a say and that ... that they do actually feel involved as well, that it’s not all justteacher-directed, it’s not all coming from the teacher or the person who is at the top but that they do feel that theycan have a say in it and sometimes they come up with a really good idea so it makes us think then, as adults. Youknow, perhaps we ought to be considering this; we ought to be taking this on board.”


The extension of leadership to pupils is described by one headteacher as integral to the school’s purposes, theschool in a sense as a laboratory for the development of their skills.

“Sometimes the business stops with me but it can stop with someone else as well. Anyone in this school who has theopportunity to be the leader at some stage might be because that is what their job says; being a teacher involvesleadership. I think everyone in this school should have the opportunity to do so; from the youngest child throughout and not just a selected few. The children will need these leadership skills in their development, future workingetc. It helps them to listen, value what other people say and be willing to come out with their ideas and try themout and be able and willing to persuade others.”


The metaphor for opportunistic leadership is described by one headteacher as the football team. When the ballgoes out of play the nearest player runs to retrieve the ball and get it back into play. Taking a free kick or penaltyis typically decided on the pitch by players opportunistically. The flow is within an overall strategy but in theevent intuitive and inter-dependent.

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Cultural distribution

There may seem little room left for a sixth conceptual category. When leadership is intuitive, assumed ratherthan given, shared organically and opportunistically, it is embedded in the culture. The sixth category, however,is distinctive by virtue of its emphasis on the what rather then the who. In other words, leadership is expressedin activities rather than roles or through individual initiative. ‘Distribution’ as a conscious process is no longerapplicable because people exercise initiative spontaneously and collaboratively with no necessary identificationof leaders or followers.

It deserves a sixth discrete category because it switches the emphasis from leaders and leadership to acommunity of people working together to a common end with all the tensions and challenges that real vibrantcommunities display. As Gronn (2000) suggests, “the potential for leadership is present in the flow of activities inwhich a set of organisation members find themselves enmeshed” (p.331).

Culture is the metaphor here. ‘Culture’ is a word to which we are so inured that we have lost sight of itsmetaphoric origins. Its connotations are growth in a nurturing set of conditions, seeding, grafting and cultivatingideas and practices. Teamworking, leading and following, looking after others are a reflection of the culture,ethos and traditions in which shared leadership is simply an aspect of ‘the way we do things round here’.

“Sometimes we delegate leadership roles; sometimes people find themselves in situations where they assumeleadership themselves. It also comes from the school’s culture where people can assume leadership roles. A lot ofpeople exert leadership with confidence not because they’ve been told to so but that’s the way things are done here.I try to openly and honestly deal with problems in this school with the involvement of other people.”


Cultural distribution sees the strength of the school as located in its collective intelligence and collective energy.In other language this may be described as social capital.

“Trust, confidence, a supportive atmosphere, and support for risk-taking – a culture that says you can take a risk –you can go and do it. If it doesn’t work, we learn from it. I think there’s a range of cultural issues that supportdistributed leadership and create a climate; high levels of communication, willingness to change and to challenge; a climate that recognises and values everybody’s opinion.”


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The key concepts in cultural distribution are agency and reciprocity. As agency transfers from individual control tocollective activity it requires a reciprocity, the ‘me-too-you-too principle’. Elmore (2004) describes this as internalaccountability, which exists in ‘powerful normative cultures’, built on four types of reciprocal relationship:

¢ respect, listening to and valuing the views of others

¢ personal regard, intimate and sustained personal relationships that undergird professional relationships

¢ competence, the capacity to produce desired results in relationships with others

¢ personal integrity, truthfulness and honesty in relationships

These hallmarks of a normative culture are what provides the sense of agency, the willingness to take risks, toboth offer and accept leadership arising from a discerned reciprocity.

These ‘discernments’ that individuals in and around schools make of each others’ behaviour and intentionsdevelop into networks of social exchange.

It is in this context that we can begin to make sense of teacher leadership, not as tied to status and position butas exercised individually and in concert in a culture that authorises and confirms a shared sense of agency.

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Chapter Five: Developing and Sustaining Distributed Leadership

Introduction

The six categories described may be seen as discrete or as phases in a developmental sequence. Distribution islikely to begin with delegation and move through incremental and opportunistic phases before leadership canbecome truly embedded in cultural mores.

Major phases of development

The model in Figure 7 portrays this as three major phases of development.

Figure 7: A model for sustaining distributed leadership in school

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Chapter Five: Developing and Sustaining Distributed Leadership

Trust

Confidence

Knowledge

Attitudes

Feedback

Motivate people to initiate leadership

Listen

Encourage risk-taking

Provide materialhelp

Make yourselfaccessible

Allow sufficient freedom for people to initiate

and implement

Ensure security

Peer/self-evaluation

Provide opportunity for CPD

Creatingawareness of sharedleadership

Create a mutual learning culture

Identify leadership potential in people

Train people for leadership

Facilitate individual leadership performance

Respect views of all

Be prepared to stand back

Formally and strategically assign leadership responsibilities to

capable individuals

Control and manage their performance

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

In the early stages of assuming leadership, a headteacher is likely to tread cautiously, observing the formalstructures and formality of the school. In coming to terms with the culture and history of the school, leadershiphas a strong pragmatic quality. In time he or she is able to become more strategic, identifying leadership needsof the school, looking for people who have the requisite capacity for satisfying such a need and then assigningresponsibilities to them. Having delegated such leadership responsibilities, the head or leadership teamendeavours to build a culture of performance by controlling and monitoring the progress of tasks. As thoseinvolved in delegated leadership roles gain mastery of the principles of leading and show signs of being able toperform with or without the headteacher’s supervision, the headteacher may create opportunities for them toshare their expertise more broadly.

Where the need is such that it requires a specialist skill, which no member of staff readily has, the head may choosebetween two options. He or she may recruit someone from outside the school and delegate an aspect of leadershipto them. Alternatively he or she may identify potential leaders from within the school, nurture them incrementally,perhaps providing opportunities for them to take part in training or other activities to stretch their capacity.

This may lead to phase 2, in which the head widens the scope of leadership incrementally to include others whomay not hold any formal leadership position in the school. Members of staff are encouraged to take theinitiative or to intervene when they see something that runs against school policy. The headteacher creates anenabling environment that encourages and values innovative ideas from all members of the school – teachers,pupils, or support staff. Conscious efforts are made to establish a shared leadership and a shared vision amongstaff as to where the school is going. This is effected by involving all staff in important decision-making:planning, developing and evaluating school policy. This has the advantage of making the staff see the schooldevelopment plan as their own creation.

Phase 2 describes a high level of developmental activity on the part of the headteacher. It describes the creationof a culture that offers teachers an opportunity to learn from one another’s practice. Its explicit purpose is toencourage a sense of collaboration among teachers and between teachers and classroom assistants, and aculture in which staff willingly use informal opportunities to discuss children’s learning and then reflect on theirpractice as a way of identifying their professional learning needs. Leadership roles are further extended to pupils.Both headteacher and teachers recognise the need to encourage pupils to exercise leadership and structures areput in place to assist pupils to develop leadership skills. Leadership begins to be exercised more opportunisticallyby staff and pupils, their involvement in decision-making expands and their contribution to school self-evaluation and development planning becomes more than tokenistic.

Phase 3 is what one headteacher in this study described as leadership ‘by standing back’. When the culture ischaracterised by mutual trust, self-confidence and shared goals, leadership can become followership as theoccasion demands. In a culture in which there is a high level of trust, differences in values and working practicescan be both tolerated and challenged. If phase 2 is transformational, phase 3 is more about sustainability andrenewal. Standing back does not imply a laissez-faire stance. It is not about maintaining the status quo butkeeping its dynamic and evolving quality alive by supporting others – what has been described as ‘servantleadership’. It is here that leadership is grasped opportunistically and cultures grow organically.

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Sustaining distributed leadership will depend partly on the degree of support a school receives from the localauthority or others outside the school. However great the investment in keeping motivation alive, and howevergood the succession planning, there seems to be natural process of entropy, or attrition. Historically few schoolshave managed to continue on an improvement trajectory of maintaining good vitality. This implies a need tomove beyond the school, to build alliances with other community agencies, networking with other schools andwith other partners such as university colleagues. It is through strong and resilient networks that schools candraw renewed energy.

Context is a fundamental consideration in any endeavour to understand the leadership practice in an individualschool. The national context weighs heavily in consideration of how different models apply within policy trendsand those that gain prominence in the policy cycle. Headteachers are aware that they need to operate within theparameters of national initiatives. They recognise the need to understand and incorporate developments in waysthat best support the learning of pupils and staff. Increasingly there are imperatives of increased fundingopportunities, successful audits of educational practice and continuous professional development and thecompliance to legislative reform. They need to be able to manage the tension between internal accountability(reciprocity) and external accountability (compliance).

In evaluating leadership and promoting self-evaluation, Ofsted is moving gradually from a concept of leadershipas singular and of accountability as purely external. An Ofsted priority is to evaluate leadership practicethroughout the school and at all levels. Good leadership is described as “…. principled, well-established anddynamic at different levels in the school”. Very good leadership is characterised by, among other things, when“leadership development is supported and encouraged through the school” (Ofsted handbook, 2003 p.115).Developing the skills and confidence to lead at department, subject, class and pupil level is considered anentitlement for professionals seeking advancement and approval. In primary schools only, a newly qualifiedteacher in her or his first year of teaching is not expected to take on the leadership of a subject. In small primaryschools, there may be several subjects.

Workforce reform in schools, supported by government legislation, requires headteachers to remodel theirworkforce in ways that make best use of the skills, potential and interests of all staff. Support staff areincreasingly taking on more responsibility and roles are being created for personnel other than teachers to take on 62-administrative and bursary work, for example.

The training and networking offered by NCSL and LEAs support these developments. Headteachers seeking to be judged successful and to ensure the professional development of their staff are likely to be seeking a moredistributed leadership throughout their organisation. These all contribute to the dilemmas of distribution.

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Chapter Six: Dilemmas in Distribution

Introduction

The 11 schools that volunteered to be involved in this project did so because they were interested in learningmore about the subject and becoming more distributed in their practice. All, in one way or another, couldidentify tensions inherent within the concept itself and dilemmas in realising it.

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Chapter Six: Dilemmas in Distribution

Consultation, command and consensus

Consultation is the process by which heads listen to others but hold on to the right to decide. Decision-makingby consensus distributes that right to others but can be paralysing of leadership. Employing leadership bycommand is most troublesome to heads because it appears to imply something undemocratic. In thisheadteacher’s description of ‘benevolent dictatorship’ it conveys something of the struggle to resolve the need to share with the need to remain in charge.

“I see leadership as multifaceted and not hierarchical although in the end someone has to stand and take thedifficult decisions and that’s my role at the end. My style is that I talk a lot but don’t make snap decisions. I try totalk things through in a longer term. I try to motivate people to take decisions but in the end I’m the one who isaccountable, the one whose neck is on the line as it were. So I delegate much leadership but my intuitive style issomehow benevolent dictatorship. Leadership that is empathetic, that shows that I care about everyone involved inthe school. Looking at the hierarchy, I’m at the top but benevolent dictatorship is about leadership that cares and issensitive to people […].”


Distribution clearly implies relinquishing at times one’s role as ultimate decision-maker and trusting others tomake the right decisions. Listening with the intent to understand, a belief in the potential and authority ofothers, negotiation and persuasion are the levers that allow trust to gain a foothold and leadership to beassumed and shared. Resolving the dilemma means having information, advice and support so as to:

¢ be clear about the difference between consultation, command and consensus

¢ make informed judgments as to when each of these strategies are appropriate

¢ ensure there is a shared understanding among staff as to the transparency of these styles

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Directing, intervening and standing back

In distribution as we have described it culturally, the success of the head’s leadership is such that he or she is nolonger highly visible. Collaborative inter-dependency has replaced dependency on the head. The head is nolonger needed but, as this head worries, is he no longer wanted?

“There is however a dilemma. If you give somebody a role and responsibility and that’s important to them and theydo the job well, when or how far do you step back and not intervene and let them get on with the job so that in theend, the head becomes so removed from the school because you’re not intervening?”


Some headteachers are aware of their need to intervene and to be in control. They admit to the anxiety of notbeing in charge and worry about too much surprise. The dependency of others may reinforce a head’s feelings ofcontrol, authority and identity. Too much independence in others may undermine the need to be needed. If,however, a headteacher, or senior leadership team, are able to measure their school’s quality and effectivenessby the ‘density’ of leadership this is, as Loa Tzu suggests, ‘the highest power’. Density (Tom Sergiovanni’s measureof distribution) may be assessed in two ways:

¢ by an aggregation of leadership roles, that is a summary of individuals holding leadership positions (formal)and/of exercising leadership ‘without portfolio’ (informally)

¢ by a holistic assessment of initiatives and developments which are are underpinned by a quality of sharedleadership, that is, cultural distribution

The harder it becomes to measure the greater distribution is embedded in ‘the flow of activities’ as Gronndescribes it. So measures move from the quantitative to the qualitative, from summary numerical data to stories,vignettes, and illustrative exemplars of improvement or transformation.

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Trust and accountability

Running through these accounts is an issue of trust. Trust presents the most acute of dilemmas because schoolleaders believe in the importance of trust but also feel the pressure of accountability from other than their ownstaff or pupils. While ‘raising standards’ is portrayed by politicians as accountability to pupils, heads do notnecessarily see it in those terms. Raising standards in practice can, in their view, often disenfranchise pupils, anddisenfranchise teachers too, teachers who feel that tactical approaches to raising standards distorts their workand undermines their professionalism.

Trust emerges consistently as one of the factors favourable to the distribution of leadership, and as central toheadteachers’ and teachers’ professional practice. Without mutual trust (among teachers, between teachers andpupils, between teachers and parents for example), suspicion erodes relationships. Getting people to participatein leadership and share ideas become problematic. As Rogers (1969) suggests:

“Symbiosis is a term used to describe a form of reciprocal relationship in which there exists an implicit give and takeand a level of mutual respect. This is by definition different from the concept of ‘delegation’, which underpins muchof thinking about distributed leadership. While delegation is expressed in ‘giving’ responsibility to others or allowingresponsibility by structural default, symbiosis has a more organic quality.”

While alive to the dangers of mistrust, heads are also aware, often through too much experience, of ways inwhich trust can be betrayed or misplaced. How leaders struggle with these issues is relevant to the form or stageof distribution in a school. In what we have described as ‘formal distribution’ trust would be balanced by systemsof control and by what Bottery describes as ‘calculative trust’ – a considered weighing up of the measure of trustthat can be allowed to any individual in any given context. This may be also be the form of trust in pragmaticand incremental distribution. Bottery’s notion of ‘professional trust’ – a confidence in the role someone isexpected to fulfil – comes into play more perhaps in strategic distribution. Here trust is invested in role andstatus with a presumption of competence, until proved otherwise. As distributed leadership matures and evolvesinto ‘cultural distribution’ it would be reasonable to expect a high level of mutual trust in the school, at leastamong staff: what Bottery described as ‘identificatory trust’. This describes an ability and willingness to putoneself in other people’s shoes, to realise the moral imperative (do unto others as you would have them do untoyou) and to treat others with integrity. This latter level of trust may be more aspirational than real but it is a goaltowards which many leaders strive.

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So, while working to generate trust, at the same time heads try to convey the message that holding staff toaccount through monitoring, scrutiny of data and performance management can build, rather than erode, trust. To accomplish this may mean creating more lateral learning and exchange, more peer mentoring andevaluation, a greater openness to criticism and challenge, modelled by those in senior and middle leadershippositions. It implies trustworthiness at the individual level, trust at the organisational level and alignment atleadership level, alignment being measured by the congruence that exists between individual trustworthinessand organisational trust.

Figure 8: Measuring the congruence between individual trustworthiness and organisational trust

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Trust atorganisational

level

Trustworthiness atindividual level

Alignment atleadership level

Factors that promote and inhibit distributed leadership in schools

Trust arises as a key theme when we address dilemmas through examining the factors that promote and inhibitthe distribution of leadership. This is the ‘force field’ or push-pull of factors that tend to be volatile and shifting,pushing leaders back to more coercive styles when trust is betrayed or risk-taking proves too risky. Thecontinually shifting balance in relationships featured prominently in headteachers’ discourse. These push andpull factors applied to members of school leadership team, among staff generally, with pupils, between pupilsand teachers, between teachers and support staff with governors and with the parent body (see Figure 7).

Promoting factors

Of all the promoting factors, trust was consistently in the foreground. It was seen as a precondition orconcomitant of risk-taking and change.

“Trust, confidence, a supportive atmosphere, and support for risk-taking – a culture that says you can take a risk –you can go and do it. If it doesn’t work, we learn from it. I think there’s a range of cultural issues that supportdistributed leadership and about a climate; high levels of communication, willingness to change and to challenge; aclimate that recognises and values everybody’s opinion.”


“Discussion of trust always referred back to school environment as a critical factor in encouraging adventure andremoving obstacles to risk-taking. I feel there must be a safe environment where people are secured enough toventure, where they know they’ll be encouraged.”

Headteacher, infant school

This was in turn linked to teachers’ mutual acceptance of one another’s leadership potential, seen by heads asan important precondition of distributed leadership. “People’s perception about other people’s initiative of newideas is greatly essential”, remarked a junior school headteacher, while another commented that a coherent staffpulling in the same direction could only function in an environment of reciprocal trust:

“Coherent staff: a staff that trusts one another. Others must accept the leadership capabilities of others. I’ve noproblem asking a newly appointed staff to lead but their colleagues need to accept him/her.”


Another promoting factor cited by heads and teachers was ‘shared goals’. This refers back to issues of consensus,conflict and compromise, the latter suggesting a matter of judgement as to where consensus is possible,compromise appropriate and executive decision necessary.

“There must be a common goals and objectives in the school and people must agree to move towards the samedirection. People must agree on things on which there can be compromises and those on which there can’t.”


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Self-esteem was also mentioned as an important promoting factor. As one infant headteacher noted, ‘Peoplemust have high self-esteem because people need confidence to engage in distributed leadership.’ In other words,a climate of trust may be a necessary but not sufficient condition for teachers to believe they can truly leadothers or take initiative singly or in a group. In our discussions with teachers some professed to being happywithout leadership responsibilities, yet with further exploration there were often examples of initiatives beingtaken, others helped, innovations proposed. These were not seen as ‘leadership’, which was something theyassociated with formal status and felt to be a bit daunting. One of the immediate outcomes of workshops withteachers was the demystification of leadership and renewed insight into how organisations learn and improve.

Availability of resources was seen by some as a necessary precondition of distribution.

“…financial stability, because it means when resources are needed I can provide.”Headteacher, middle school

Human resources were also mentioned, without which distribution was seen as either inhibited or impossible.

“Provided I can assemble a staff that is skilled and efficient and trustworthy, then I’ll expect them to get on and dotheir jobs and to do them better than I can do.”


Clearly good staffing, continuity and stability are crucial if leadership is to be entrusted to others; at the sametime an optimum level of turnover provides new insights and energy.

Inhibiting factors

The absence of any or all of the above factors restricts the ability of schools to develop and effectivelyimplement distributed leadership. This is reflected in views expressed by the participants and summarised inFigure 7. Heads saw the apparent apathy or resistance among teachers to sharing leadership as a manifestationof insecurity:

“If staff are given a role, they need to feel secure with that role. For example, the ICT specialist will block othermembers from sharing his secret garden of knowledge if that person lacks confidence.”


And because of overwhelming workload resulting from external pressure:

“I think it’s a motive issue. Individual motives and different personal circumstances prevent some people fromtaking up leadership roles. When there’s so much pressure on teachers in the school they’ll definitely avoid takingleadership responsibilities.”


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Structural factors were also cited as inhibiting.

“The structure of schools militates against distributed leadership. In my view, they’re Victorian in processes and structure.Often schools don’t focus on learning; they focus on control with 30 kids in a class, the bell going every hour to directsubjects; a whole series of petty roles and systems to control behaviour […]. The controlled structure of school activitiesdoes not help pupils to acquire the skills to succeed in a world that is flexible, adjustable, free thinking, high level ofcommunicative skills […] you’re controlling them and that militates against distributed leadership.”


Links were also made between accountability and school structures. Heads reported difficulties in grantingteachers much freedom to initiate and implement new ideas without exerting some form of control. One headargued that limitation to freedom is an unavoidable function of institutional life and is a determining factor indistribution of leadership.:

“The natural limit to freedom. I don’t think you can give total freedom to those you share leadership with. AlthoughI do encourage leadership in the school, I feel I’m still accountable. There must be some sort of monitoring system.”

Headteacher

While headteachers in this study generally saw distributed leadership as a tool for reducing their workload andfor building the school as a learning organisation, they also worried about the lack of preparedness on the partof teachers to take up leadership roles. “Distribution may fail when people aren’t prepared to take up jobs,”argued one junior school head. This is an issue of continuing professional development and underpinned byissues of recruitment, retention and promotion.

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Chapter Seven:Implications for Professional Practice

A number of clear messages emerge from this study.

Leadership at all levels of the school matters. Distributed leadership can have far reaching effects on school andclassroom practice. It is a concept endorsed by NCSL and embedded in Ofsted inspections and through thesechannels has led to increasing adoption of the idea both as a benchmark for the evaluation of school leadershipand as the motor of school improvement. Distributed leadership is increasingly becoming the means by whichschools are able to respond to emerging policies and challenging public demands. There remains a need,however, for school staff, and others who support the work of schools, to recognise its latent power, through theongoing, rather than the more ritual, process of self-evaluation. An important tool in a school’s self-evaluationkit is the force field analysis, which can help a staff to identify the inhibitors and promoters of shared leadership.These have also been described as ‘toxins’ and ‘nutrients’, (Southworth, 2000), poisoning or nourishingprofessional life.

The inherent limitation of self-evaluation as audit review or internal inspection is that it can too easily bypassthese underlying aspects of school culture and leadership, missing internal accountability in the pursuit ofexternal accountability. It is in the shared conversations, as we have witnessed in this project, that criticalreflection and genuine self-evaluation takes place.

The distribution of leadership is ultimately a reflection of the headteacher’s style and philosophy. While this isoften implicit and intuitive rather than studied or systematic the headteacher’s influence is pervasive, whetherthrough conspicuous presence or conspicuous absence. Some individuals in our group of heads explicitlyrecognised their own power as shapers of the school ethos and relationships, and they self-consciouslydemonstrated how they wanted others to behave. Others acknowledged that they were leaders by virtue of theirrole but did not find it easy to articulate what their influence was. Some were unsure of what they actually did to ‘lead’ and even shy of the idea of themselves as leaders. Similarly, teachers often shared in leadership butwithout conscious articulation of the leadership roles they were performing. Leadership was equated with theoffice and the behaviour of the head, or senior leadership team. Teachers tended not to associate notions ofleadership with themselves unless – even when – holding some designated promoted role. Ad hoc or intuitiveleadership performed outside the classroom tended to be seen simply in terms of ‘that’s how things are done here’.

Where ‘distributed leadership’ was more explicit, it was seen predominantly in terms of subject leadership andidentified in formal structures, such as designated leadership teams, heads of key stages and assistantheadteacher roles. Casting in exclusively in these terms could inhibit others in non-promoted roles to seeleadership as the province of others. Unwillingness to grasp one’s own authority may be attributed to structuralfactors and a culture in which the ‘responsibility virus’ is allowed to multiply.

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Chapter Seven: Implications for Professional Practice

While professional latitude in leading a school is constrained by external and internal structural factors, byhistory, convention and expectation, senior leaders employ a range of intuitive and pragmatic approaches todistribution and in many cases extend its reach more widely to include pupils and teachers ‘without portfolio’.Heads in this study described themselves variously as ‘facilitators’, ‘supporters’ and ‘orchestrators’, ‘letting go’ or‘standing back’, sometimes tentatively with a weather eye on those to whom they had to render an account.Successful implementation of distributed leadership is, among other things, determined by a willingness ofheadteachers to relinquish power. Without this willingness to let go, opportunistic and cultural cannot develop.

However, distributed leadership is above all ‘situational’. It is sensitive to time and context. Trust and reciprocitytake time to grow. All of the six models we have described have their own context, place and purpose.Distribution develops in different ways, through both formal and informal processes in the school. It works bothfrom the top down and through bottom up processes initiated by teachers and sometimes pupils. While there islittle evidence in this study of parents as leaders (governing bodies apart) there is undoubtedly greater scope fortheir contribution to school improvement.

With our six models in mind, together with some of the tools we have used in this project, schools may beencouraged to take a more strategic, self-evaluating and self-improving approach to distributed leadership.

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Some questions to consider

1. As headteachers adopt the language of distributed leadership it may sit uncomfortably with a morehierarchical structure and culture and what has been done historically.

¢ Where is the line drawn between ‘hands off’, ‘standing back’, and ‘laissez faire’?

¢ In what circumstances is it appropriate?

2. Headteachers speak of ‘fluidity’. Leadership may be less located in the ‘who’ than in the ‘what’,arising out of activity in which people spontaneously and instinctively take the initiative.

¢ Is fluidity too risky? Is there a need for clearly demarcated roles to avoid confusion or anxiety?

3. Distributed leadership may be seen as close to or equivalent to democratic leadership. For anyculture to work, there need to be mores, rules and sanctions, consensus around a democratic culture.

¢ In a hierarchical structure in which people are divided not only by role and status but by salary, how valid may be a teacher’s claim that ‘I’m not paid for that?’

4. In a simple, linear line management structure, the lines of accountability are clear and wellunderstood. As the structure and culture become more complex, less stratified, and more organic,accountability becomes complex.

¢ How does accountability work when leadership is distributed?

5. Distributing leadership and at the same time having a coherent system of accountability relies onconditions or a climate that permits and encourages sharing. Its key element is trust.

¢ What are the different understandings of trust among teachers and pupils?

¢ How can a school create and sustain trust?

6. Heads describe their visions of school in terms of democratic, greater freedom to choose where andwhen you learn, how and what you learn but they also have to respond to external pressures, egOfsted, and also relay some of those pressures on to their staff.

¢ How do heads manage that tension with honesty and integrity?

¢ Is it possible to avoid manipulation, lack of disclosure, the ‘noble lie’?

¢ Can the principle of distributed leadership be effectively implemented without the head exhibiting some political and micro-political skills?

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